Dating and matchmaking have been around for a long time. However, today's fast-paced lifestyles have caused single people to come under increasing time pressures at work, school, and play. Such lifestyles leave little time left for conventional dating. Furthermore, single people are more mobile than ever, which makes it more difficult to meet people for dating. Also, individuals have higher expectations of meeting the ‘right’ person: someone with whom they are compatible and with whom they have ‘chemistry’. Finally, workplace romance is on the decline due to growing sensitivity about sexual harassment. Consequently, many singles are enlisting the use of electronic dating services, hoping to find a more convenient and effective dating experience. Currently, there are two broad classes of electronic dating services:                Web based dating; and        telephone based dating (which may also feature a limited Web user interface).Web Based Dating        
In Web based, or online, dating services, an individual first becomes a subscriber by completing a detailed profile, providing various details about themselves such as age, geographic location, physical characteristics, and likes and dislikes. The individual then searches for others by entering similar criteria, such as age range, geographic location, and desired physical characteristics. After searching, the individual can review the matching users' profiles, which may contain a photograph. The individual then decides which of the matching users they would like to pursue, and sends them an e-mail in the hope of receiving a response. Users then get to know one another by exchanging e-mails.
Web based dating services, however, suffer from major inherent drawbacks. First, the sign-up process is cumbersome because users must complete lengthy questionnaires and compose essay-type questions. This results in a high rate of abandonment during the sign-up process.
Second, it is difficult for an individual to assess other users and get a sense of what they are really like based on simply viewing their photograph and reading the textual data in their profile.
Third, email, or electronic text, is not an effective means of communication for getting to know someone for the first time, and learning what they and their personality is really like. It is too impersonal. It does not carry a wealth of human information like tone. The users must gauge ‘chemistry’ purely from an exchange of textual data, thus leading to uncertainty whether mutual attraction exists between two users. As a result, many shy people never end up making the first move for fear that the other person may not share a mutual interest. For others who misjudge mutual attraction, it can result in awkward or embarrassing situations, such as trying to end an unwanted conversation.
Fourth, there is a time lag in the back and forth flow of information between the two parties. Trying to get to know someone through exchanging e-mails is usually cumbersome and tedious. Some Web services try to make the process more interactive by allowing the exchange of instant text messages with those users who happen to be present on the system. However, instant text messages still suffer from the uncertainty and stodginess of purely textual communication
Fifth, some Web based services attempt to match users solely by comparing attributes of their profiles, such as age, geographic location, height, and various likes and dislikes. They assign weightings to each matching factor, and then compute an overall score representing the degree of matching. One problem with this method of matching is that the weights assigned to each matching factor are arbitrary. For some individuals, it would be more important that their match was tall than if they had dark hair, but this is not taken into account. Fundamentally, this purely scientific approach to matchmaking does not work in practice. It is well known that just because two individuals appear to be a good match based on attributes in their profiles, it does not mean that if they were to talk or meet, that they there would be ‘chemistry’ between them.
Finally, Web based dating services result in a very uneven level of activity across users. Those individuals who have profiles that are perceived as unattractive receive little or no interest from other users. This will result in them becoming dissatisfied and desisting from using the service. Conversely, those with profiles perceived as attractive receive an abundance of interest from other users, usually becoming overloaded with e-mails (for example, receiving hundreds of e-mails per day). This results in both the user who is perceived as attractive becoming dissatisfied with the service, because they are overwhelmed and can not make a rational decision about whom to pursue. It also results in the users who e-mailed the user who is perceived as attractive become dissatisfied because they did not receive a reply.
One particular type of online dating is known as “speed dating.” Speed dating, consists of users meeting in a text-based chatroom and spending a fixed amount of time (e.g. 7 minutes) exchanging messages with each other in pairs, in a round-robin fashion. After each pair talks, they fill-out a form stating whether they would like to have additional information, such as a phone number, revealed to the other persons. At the end of the session, the results are compiled, and it is determined whether there was a match in both directions. If there was a two-way match, the additional information is revealed to the matching users.
Online speed dating, however, suffers from drawbacks as well. First, participants can communicate during the date only through text based instant messaging. Thus, as discussed previously, online speed dating suffers from the same problems as web-based text dating.
Second, participants must have an Internet connection with a Web browser that supports the proprietary instant messaging system.
Finally, online speed dating is inconvenient. Online speed dating is usually divided into events according to categories (e.g. 45–55 year old New Yorkers.) Potential participants must view a schedule of upcoming events, find an event that they are interested in attending, and then return to the Web site at that time. Thus, if a user wants to meet people from different categories, the user will have to wait for the next scheduled event in that category.
Telephone Based Dating
In telephone based dating systems, a person wishing to meet another person must make a telephone call to a phone number and listen to pre-recorded messages from others who are looking to meet people. After listening to the message of another that an individual finds interesting, he/she can leave a private voicemail message for them. The two users then exchange voicemails to get to know one another. A minority of services include a Web user interface that allows listening and recording of messages through the Internet.
However, telephone based dating services also suffer from a number of major inherent drawbacks. First, the sign-up process is not pleasant for most people, because they must record an ad. This ad will be heard by all potentially compatible people on the system, so there is pressure to make it very good. There is also a fear that someone with whom the user is known will listen to the ad and recognize the user. In practice, most people do not record a voice ad that portrays them in a particularly attractive light.
Second, telephone based services in general do not feature more than a few basic searchable categories, such as gender, age or type or relationship. The user is therefore forced to listen to many ads to find a few potentially compatible people. Listening to many ads quickly becomes a tedious process.
Third, it is difficult to tell what someone is like from just a voice message. In practice, the voice messages that people record are not a true reflection of their character.
Fourth, telephone based dating services are limited in geographic scope. Most telephone based dating services are provided through local systems, available in major metropolitan areas. Thus it is not possible to listen to messages from users in another area, even a neighboring area. Providers of these services publish different phone numbers to access each separate local system. This makes it difficult to develop a strong widespread brand or advertise on a nationwide basis.
Finally, telephone conversations are open-ended. There is no mechanism for scheduling live conversations, and there is no mechanism for determining if there is a mutual desire to get to know one another further.
For all of these reasons, an electronic dating system is needed that is convenient, easy to use, fast, private and effective.